From Miles to “Electric Miles”: the Constantly Changing Musical Style of Jazz-trumpetist Miles Davis
From Miles to “Electric Miles”: the Constantly Changing Musical Style of Jazz-trumpetist Miles Davis
When Miles Davis was asked the question what he had done that was so important in his life at an award dinner at the White House in 1987 he answered “well, I’ve changed music five or six times”. Even though this may be exaggerated and said by a person with quite an attitude it fascinated me when I read this in an article in an issue of the Rolling Stone magazine from 1991, written just after the death of the great jazz trumpeter. While Davis is most famous for his earlier work (read for albums like Kind of Blue) his repertory is a lot bigger then this. Davis’ fascination for new instruments, technology and innovation comes back in the music he made, with which he influenced many other musicians. This is the reason why he is called “Electric Miles” at a certain point and why he lost a big part of his old fanbase (they found that Davis became too much involved in the world of pop music and therefore doubted his authenticity). But despite the negativity of his older fans it is exactly this interest I want to research. If it is true that Miles Davis included more and more electric elements (for example instruments, but also methods of recording) in his music overtime this should be visible in the statistics Spotify gives us (for example in the acousticness). I will set this off against the energy that is in the music because for me as listener this is variable changes a lot when I listen to tracks from different moments in Davis’ career.
For my research I’ve made a playlist on spotify with a selection of the most important albums Davis made during his life. This selection is not only based on the popularity of the albums, but also on where you can hear a clear change of style. I have not included every album he made because I’m convinced this will only make the results vaguer because of the overwhelming amount of data that will appear in the graphs. I’ve also excluded the work he made with composer Gil Evans, though this is an important part of his repertory. The reason I made this choice is because I see this cooperation more as a side project in which Miles Davis works with a big orchestra, something that he only does on the four albums he made with Evans in the period from 1957 until 1961.
Despite the exclusion of a certain part of his work I think the selection I made represents the oeuvre of Miles Davis well. In the end I hope to have a good and clear representation of the change of style in Davis’ music.
Miles Davis
Findings
Acousticness vs Energy
In this graph you can see the acousticness of the music set against the energy If you move over the dots you can see which track is standing where. This is an important feature because now you can actually see which track of Davis it is, and thus in which period he made it. Knowing this you it is possible to conclude what kind of music Davis made in different periods of his life.
Audio Analysis
Audio Analysis
Here you can see an audioo analysis of the piece “Blue in Green”. As you can see the most frequently played tone is a D, followed by an A. Since the F# isn’t highlighted, but the F sometimes is we can conclude the mode is D minor.
Timbre Analysis
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